With the Gulf spill, I absolutely merged in the time when I had that infection. I couldn't get out of the Gulf spill. There were so many similarities: the drains and the siphoning and the tubes. And also in the way the earth was hurt, the ocean was bleeding. Remember the video cams of the oil gushing? I couldn't stop watching that.

I think to be cut off from your heart is the greatest tyranny in the world.

I finally know the difference between pleasing and loving, obeying and respecting. It has taken me so many years to be okay with being different, and with being this alive, this intense.

Success itself doesn't give you happiness. It's what you do with your success that gives you happiness.

I am so grateful to be alive. It's ridiculous to be alive.

I think the world is always improving and always not improving. I think that both are simultaneously happening all the time. I don't think it's one motion unfortunately - I wish we could say it's better, better, better - but I think it's better, bad, better, bad - you know?

People didn't feel so much shame around it and that they didn't feel so much humiliation around it. And the other thing that people have given me a lot of feedback about - something I'm very excited about - is all the stuff around chemo as an "empathetic warrior."